1. Field
Example embodiments relate to holography devices using surface plasmons. Example embodiments also relate to three-dimensional (3D) image display apparatuses including holography devices. Additionally, example embodiments relate to methods of processing holography images.
2. Description of Related Art
Three-dimensional (3D) image display apparatuses that realistically and effectively display an image are increasingly required in various fields, such as medical images, games, advertisements, education, and the military. Accordingly, as a method of displaying a 3-dimensional image, research has been widely conducted into a holography image method or a stereoscopic method.
According to a holography image method, a coherent signal obtained by overlapping a light incident from an object and a coherent reference light may be recorded and reproduced. The holography image method may be ideal for realizing a 3-dimensional image. Since Dennis Gabor, an English scientist, developed the first hologram in the 1940s, research into holography image has been conducted by many scientists. Recently, a variety of holography image techniques have been developed for displaying, for example, a pulsed laser hologram for a dynamic image, a stereohologram for a wide spatial view and wide viewing angle, an embossed hologram for mass production, a natural color hologram displaying natural colors, a digital hologram using a digital imaging device, and/or an electronic holography image. The electronic holography image used since 1990 may be an imaging technique of the next generation. According to the electronic holography image, an image of an object may be reproduced on a display device by scanning an image of the object in pixels to form a hologram, sampling and transmitting data contained in the hologram, and/or reproducing the hologram from the transmitted data.
A typical holography device for reproducing a holography image may use a photopolymer in order to form diffraction gratings. With regard to a photopolymer, since the height of a portion that is hardened by receiving light may be reduced, a holography image to be recorded may be recorded according to a thickness difference of the photopolymer. When a thickness difference of a photopolymer that is hardened occurs once, the current state may never be changed again. Accordingly, a holography device including a photopolymer may reproduce only a single holography image.